On Being an Empath

Given my need for honesty (at almost any cost), my hypersensitivity to noise and smells, and other eccentricities, I believed I was a high functioning autistic. When I did the online test I was definitely on the spectrum. But one very important element didn’t quite fit that ‘diagnosis’. Although some autistic people have a ‘low threshold for stimulation….a need for alone time [and]…an aversion to large groups’ the one thing autistic people don’t seem to have is an interest in or capacity for certain types of abstract philosophical thought because they tend to interpret things literally. I definitely don’t do that. In fact I hardly ever do that – I’m always looking for deeper explanations and motivations.

People with autism are ‘details-before-concept’ thinkers, while non-autistic people are ‘concept-before-details’ thinkers. An autistic mind uses a bottom-up approach with which to negotiate its environment. Someone who isn’t autistic uses ‘top-down’ thinking, which includes pulling in remembered and learned information.

One psychiatrist identifies 3 different autistic types:

• Visual thinkers who are often poor at algebra
• Verbal specialists - good at talking and writing but lacking visual skills
• Pattern thinkers who excel in maths and music but may have problems with reading or writing composition

I don’t fit into any of these categories. As an artist I have well developed visual skills but I also did so well at maths, including algebra, that I was sent to a special advanced course in maths when I was 13. I also loved literature at high school and as an adult, wrote a 40,000 word thesis – so I don’t think I have trouble with reading or writing composition.

During a discussion one day a close friend said to me: ‘oh, you’re just an empath’. At the time I didn’t take much notice. I continued to attribute my difficulties negotiating the world to mild autism. But every time I watched a documentary on autism I couldn’t quite get myself to fit the model. I’m now thinking my friend was right. I think I am an empath.

You only need to exhibit 3 of these 7 signs to be classified as an empath. I experience them all:

1. You Experience Extreme Emotions In Certain Environments: Yes. 
2. People Seek You Out As A Confidant: Absolutely. I don’t know how many times a total stranger has shared the most intimate details of their life with me – unbidden. It can be a burden. It definitely was when I was a kid.
3. You Need A Lot Of Time Alone: Yes. When I’m not at work I am usually alone – even though I live with my partner. Either he’s at one end of the house and I’m at the other, or I am outside in the garden working alone.
4. You Become Overwhelmed In Intimate Relationships: Yes. I am uncomfortable with physical and emotional intimacy. My mother tells me I was not the sort of child you could cuddle. I would wriggle out of someone’s embrace as soon as I could.
5. You Feel Drained In Large Crowds: Yes. I hate parties and don’t even try going to them any more. In the past I used to look for an excuse to leave as soon as I could. I hate the city when I visit. I hate busy tourist times in my small town.
6. You Have To Sleep Alone: Yes. Someone else’s presence in the bed stops me from sleeping.
7. You Go Out Of Your Way To Help People: Yes. Way too much.

Empaths are usually introverts. They experience such ‘fierce’ emotions that they often retreat from relationships altogether. For me this has been a survival strategy – empaths don’t know how to set emotional boundaries between their own feelings and the feelings of others. I’ve often been labelled too emotional or too sensitive. If someone near me is upset, I’m upset. My partner calls me the ‘psychic sponge’.

I am drained by crowds – I feel overstimulated emotionally. It’s like I am a radio antennae tuning in to all the emotion going on around me. It’s exhausting. My nerves are jarred by noise – particularly bass sounds – smells and excessive conversation. I can smell peoples' deodorant and hair conditioner – even out in the surf!! If several people are wearing different deodorants in the same room, or worse, in a lift - it drives me crazy. I experience a physical, bodily response to these stresses – my nervous system feels as though it is vibrating. It is jarring and unnerving. I have to distance myself from the stimulus.

Being an empath is more intense than being highly sensitive. According to self-declared empath and psychiatrist Judith Orloff, ‘empaths can sense subtle energy (called Shakti or Prana in Eastern traditions)’, even absorb it from other people and environments into their own bodies, which highly sensitive people don’t tend to do.

‘This capacity allows us to experience the energy around us, including emotions and physical sensations, in extremely deep ways. And so we energetically internalise the feelings and pain of others - and often have trouble distinguishing someone else’s discomfort from our own. Also, some empaths have profound spiritual and intuitive experiences - with animals, nature - which aren’t usually associated with highly sensitive people’.

This is true. I’ve had lots of incidents like this. I remember patting a friend’s dog one day and as I ran my hands over it I sensed an injury on the right side. I said to my friend: ‘has your dog been hurt on this side of its body? Something has happened here’. She confirmed that the dog had been hit by a car on that side of its body. I’ve had prophetic dreams occasionally too. And a dream in which I swear I was awake and moving outside in the bush – more like an out of body experience. I saw all the trees and plants as coloured bands of rainbow light. It was extraordinary. I remember thinking in the dream: ‘this is what things really look like’. It felt as though I was actually seeing the energy fields of the physical environment – no bark, browns or greens – just shimmering pure coloured light. This dream forever changed the way I saw the world.

There are also times in nature that I feel as though I am walking into energy fields. It is palpable and can make me light headed and lose my sense of direction. It’s like I’ve slipped into another dimension. On one occasion I was taken to a recognised Aboriginal site – a stream at the bottom of a cliff right in the heart of the city. We sat there while my guide played the didgeridoo and I felt I had slipped into another time. The highway was very close but I couldn’t hear the cars - I only heard the didge. When he stopped playing I could once again hear the traffic. It was as though time had stood still for a while, or that I had been transported back in time.

I don’t know whether I believe in ‘poltergeists’ or not, but I have definitely experienced malevolent ‘energy’ in a couple of different places. One was in a friend’s flat, and another during a night shift in the psychiatric hospital I was working in at the time.

I’ve often thought I was crazy and wished like hell I wasn’t the way I am. But I’m also very grateful for the insights and experiences I have had. I wonder how the hell someone like me ended up working in a prison – a place of so much darkness and misery. It definitely takes an emotional toll on me, but there’s something right about being there too. I don’t expect sympathy, or to be thought of as ‘special’. Everyone is special. It simply is what it is.

Image: Author. Digital drawing.

Research Shows Three Distinct Thought Styles In People With Autism
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/07/05/research-shows-three-distinct-thought-styles-in-people-with-autism/#69f0957a221e
Who Can Empaths Fall in Love With?
https://backpackerverse.com/who-can-empaths-fall-in-love-with/
The Differences Between Highly Sensitive People and Empaths
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-empaths-survival-guide/201706/the-differences-between-highly-sensitive-people-and-empaths